“Brain cancer question?”
Hello! I am a writer and struggling with a character's medical details - so this is the opposite way round to the way you usually approach problems!
She is a 40-year-old professional musician (you can choose the instrument cos you can do that in fiction); she has had a brain tumor removed/debulked (Would she have had chemo too?) while playing the musical instrument under imaging (what sort of imaging do they use for this?) to preserve that function.
Now (how long afterwards?) the tumor has recurred. She has language but becomes non-verbal if possible - she writes stuff down. Perhaps her ability to play the instrument is beginning to reduce e.g. tremor in the sound
These are the compulsory details. I was hoping you could give me a name and location for a tumor to fit them (and each other), along with a typical time scale appropriate to that tumor. How long would she live? What range of physical activity are we looking at? I would be interested to know any sketchy details you could give me about typical clinical signs that fit that pattern, so I can get to research.
Then I can hopefully start to give this woman a character and a framework for the rest of her life without losing medical accuracy.
Thank you!
She is a 40-year-old professional musician (you can choose the instrument cos you can do that in fiction); she has had a brain tumor removed/debulked (Would she have had chemo too?) while playing the musical instrument under imaging (what sort of imaging do they use for this?) to preserve that function.
Now (how long afterwards?) the tumor has recurred. She has language but becomes non-verbal if possible - she writes stuff down. Perhaps her ability to play the instrument is beginning to reduce e.g. tremor in the sound
These are the compulsory details. I was hoping you could give me a name and location for a tumor to fit them (and each other), along with a typical time scale appropriate to that tumor. How long would she live? What range of physical activity are we looking at? I would be interested to know any sketchy details you could give me about typical clinical signs that fit that pattern, so I can get to research.
Then I can hopefully start to give this woman a character and a framework for the rest of her life without losing medical accuracy.
Thank you!
Female | 41 years old
Complaint duration: variable
Conditions: brain tumour
1 Answer
Neurologist|NeurologyNeurosurgeon
What: Astrocytoma. Life expectancy: can be unchanged from normal to death within 3-6 months, worst case. Can present with an inability to think as clearly, confusion, loss of executive function: foreseeing consequences of their actions, or loss of motor control or of vision on 1 side of the body, or, if it is in the temporal or frontal lobes on the left, then loss of speech and
understanding. Instrument: all instruments require dexterity on1 or both sides of the body, so inability to play as well would apply to any brain tumor.
understanding. Instrument: all instruments require dexterity on1 or both sides of the body, so inability to play as well would apply to any brain tumor.
